"There is only one power that determines the course of history . . . the power of ideas." — Ayn Rand

Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Statist Premises in the Budget Debate

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a budget that will reduce the growth of federal spending by $1.3 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Thus, taxpayers will get to keep $1.3 trillion dollars more of their earnings.

Of course, that's not the way the Left portrays it. In its typical Orwellian dishonesty, it portrays the reduced growth as actual spending cuts, even though the budget will still grow by 32% by 2026. That includes the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

Details aside, I want to focus on basic premises that statists sneak into the budget dialogue. One statist premise, of course, is the spending-increase-is-a-spending-cut premise. In its critique of the GOP budget, House Republicans proposed spending cuts make Scrooge look good, the Star-Ledger advances two more statist premises.

Think of the insidious premise this statement rests on. The Star-Ledger is essentially saying that more money kept in the hands of the people who earned, via tax cuts, is a government handout. The same could be said of every dollar you earn. If that is the case, the government owns every dollar that every American earns, and we have arrived at the ultimate moral inversion: Your earnings are not yours by right, but by privilege bestowed on you by government, since the government has first claim on its citizens’ wealth. Put another way, the government, which creates no wealth, is the owner of all of the wealth of the people who do create the wealth, and has first claim on that wealth.

To be sure, the tax code is unfair. It is a tool for politicians to manipulate behavior and favor or harm one constituency or another. The obvious solution to the unfairness is a simple flat tax.

If it ever becomes fully accepted that the government has first claim on the nation’s wealth, by virtue of its taxing authority, we will all in effect become subjects or slaves living at the pleasure of the state—thus establishing a major foundational element of totalitarianism. We will all have lost our property rights to the product of our labor. By logical extension, we will have lost all of our freedoms, because whoever controls the material means of supporting your life has you by the throat—and then all other rights become hollow abstractions.

Statists have a lot of newspeak in their linguistic arsenal. The tax expenditure myth is one of them. Beware.

“In 1927 Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr, a Republican, wrote in a famous dissent, that ‘taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.’”

All taxes are legalized armed robbery. When all taxation becomes voluntary, we will have arrived at a fully civilized society. But a fully civilized society is a long way off, considering the extensive corruption of power lust and entitlement that permeates the state of today's culture.

That said, it’s true taxation is needed to maintain a civilized society. And to maintain a civilized society, a government is a necessary good. But we can still distinguish between proper and improper taxation. Proper taxation is that which supports the proper function of the government, which is to protect individual rights equally and at all times—rights being guarantees to freedom of action (the rights to free speech, religion, or to earn property by production and trade), not an automatic claim on goods or services that others must be forced to provide (the “rights” to education or healthcare). Proper government functions include the police, the law courts, the military, the patent and copyright offices, legislators’ salaries, etc.

Any taxation that redistributes wealth is illegitimate, as well as any taxation that supports economic regulation and their related agencies. (By “regulation” I mean “the legal imposition or prohibition of courses of private action in which no actual or intended rights-violations are evident,” such as minimum wage laws, the birth control and other insurance mandates, etc. Laws against fraud, extortion, and the like, as well as traffic laws, are not economic regulation.)

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The upshot is that any cuts in taxes coupled with cuts in improper government spending are welcome steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, real cuts in taxing and spending are a pipe dream as long as we don’t tackle the moral underpinnings of the welfare state, and begin phasing out spending programs.

About Me

Greetings and welcome to my blog. My name is Michael A. (Mike) LaFerrara. I sometimes use the pen or "screen" name "Mike Zemack" or "Zemack" in online activism, such as posted comments on articles. “Zemack” stands for the first letters of the names of my six grandchildren. I was born in 1949 in New Jersey, U.S.A., where I retired from a career in the plumbing, building controls, and construction industries, and still reside with my wife of 45 years. The purpose of my blog is the discussion of a wide range of topics relating to human events. My analysis is informed by the principles of Objectivism, the philosophy of reason and independence originated by Ayn Rand.

As Rand observed: “The professional intellectual is the field agent of the army whose commander-in-chief is the philosopher.” I am certainly not the philosopher. But neither am I a field agent, or general. I am a foot soldier in that Objectivist army that fights for an individualist society in which every person can live in dignified sovereignty, by his own reasoned judgment, for his own sake, in that state of peaceful coexistence with his fellow man that only capitalist political and economic freedom can provide. While I am a fully committed Objectivist, my opinions are based on my own understanding of Objectivism, and should not be taken as definitive “Objectivist positions.” For the full story of my journey toward Objectivism, see my Introduction.

One final introductory note: I strongly recommend Philosophy, Who Needs it, which highlights the inescapable importance of philosophy in every individual's life. I can be reached at mal.atlas@comcast.net. Thanks, Mike LaFerrara.

Recommended Essays/Videos

Quotes I Like

Let me give you a tip on a clue to men’s characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper’s bell of an approaching looter.—Francisco d'Anconia

I love getting older...I get to grow up and learn things. Madalyn, 5 years old, Montesorri student, and my grand-daughter

The best thing one can do for the poor is to not become one of them. Author Unknown

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. Francis Bacon

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Ronald Reagan

Thinking is hard work. If it weren't, more people would do it. Henry Ford

Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries. Ayn Rand